Idaho voters rebuke Luna, Otter in dumping ed laws

Idaho voters rejected all three of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna's laws to overhaul education, a blow not only to the state's public schools leader but also to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.

With 99 percent of precincts counted, 66 percent of voters panned Luna's plan to spend $180 million to lease laptops for high school students and create online-class mandates.

The other two laws -- limits on teachers' collective bargaining rights and a new system of merit pay for teachers -- also flamed out, on margins of more than 12 percentage points.

On a night where voters preserved Republicans' hold on the Idaho Legislature and delivered nearly a supermajority to Mitt Romney, they couldn't stomach education changes that many teachers argued had been foisted on them from above.